woahfraze

True on the drives. Tough to say what the worst call was. The missed travel allowed hot/lucky GT to bank in a three. So certainly a big missed call. But that’s just how it is sometimes. They made their shots. We didn’t. So while the missed foul at the end of the game certainly was huge and we likely win if it was called, we can’t say we deserved to win with how we played. At the end of the day, I think what all fans want is some damn consistency from the refs. You see a crazy amount of variance not just game to game but within a single game itself. How are the players supposed to know how aggressively they can defend? Why are hand checks called and then the next play a defender allowed to body a driver putting up a layup without a call? I see this every single game for both teams it’s not just a UNC thing. For example, I think at least two or three of the fouls against Cadeau were BS. He’s got to be more disciplined with reaching in. His last two were of that variety, one when a GT guard was driving the basket and was legit a foul as he reached around the back not just at the ball, and the other way out on the perimeter. That latter one I think was BS. May have been a letter of the law hand check, but when the refs are allowing defenders to bump dribblers and impede their path, I think it’s ridiculous to call this sort of thing in the interest of “freedom of movement.” I don’t recall all three of the other fouls exactly, but they were in the paint after getting backed down and I think he did a really good job of just keeping his hands straight up to contest the shot. A lot is being made of his body language afterward and their certainly is a pattern of foul trouble so maybe I’m wrong and he is doing something that makes the refs call these sorts of fouls, but I honestly feel for the kid because this is not the first game I’ve walked away from thinking WTF is he supposed to do on plays like this and that he hasn’t been fouling on them.

That’s probably on Chark. We don’t know if he ran the wrong route or if Bryce threw the wrong route. But typically when you see that, it’s on the WR. He turned in when Bryce expected him to turn out.

Because the Bucs recovered it in the end zone and never got out of the end zone into the field of play. It would only be a safety if Bucs has possession outside end zone and then went back into the end zone and got tackled.

For me what it really comes down to is can Bryce get more consistently comfortable in the pocket. If he can do that, I think he’ll be OK. Probably not an elite guy. And certainly not worth what we gave up for him. But a perfectly fine QB. On the last drive, he hung in the pocket and found the open man. I think a lot of his trouble has been poor footwork beyond his “normal” tip toe hopping where he hasn’t trusted the protection (often rightly so, sometimes not). When his feet aren’t ready to throw, he’s either late on pulling the trigger on the right read or he can’t get enough my zip on the ball. If he can clean all that up in the offseason, maybe we have a chance in a bad NFC South in 2024.

Defense. I know the conditions were terrible and not conducive to throwing the ball, and I know Desmond Ridder and Arthur Smith are ass, but collectively holding them to 200 yards and one score when for most of the day the offense wasn’t giving them time to rest at all was an impressive display. Happy Bryce has some good throws on the final drive and the offense did what it needed, but even in the rainy conditions, no one on offense deserves games balls when they only mustered 9 points. Chuba would probably be the closest to deserving.

Estatic for the win. But sad we’ve fallen so far that we’re celebrating a 9-7 win a nor’easter against an awful opponent where pretty much any weird thing could happen due to the wind and rain.

Lol, Ridder so bad.

Burns getting massively held. Wtf ref?

Have a feeling this will only result in a FG for us lol

These two teams are setting back NFL offenses decades so far today.

I mean it’s still a mix of both. I’ve long been a Bryce defender, but as the season has progressed, I’ve come around to the perspective that he’s definitely a big part of the problem. I still think he’s better than he’s shown, but that at this point, he’s shellshocked. And I do still believe the offensive line, the WRs, and scheme (route combos) really make/made it hard on him. But he’s missing too many plays when the rest of the offense does execute. Everything is such a poo show and all the deficiencies play off each other and multiply to give us the historically bad offensive production that we have. Bryce is a part of that. It remains to be seen whether the situation and he himself can improve into a workable offense over the course of the next year. But I’m off the “he can be a franchise QB train.” I see serviceable at best if everything comes together perfectly, which of course is unlikely. And living “in the middle” of the NFL hierarchy is not where we want to be long term (although god it would feel so much better than where we are now…)

This. What bearing does our past have on our present when we have a new owner and no culture to speak of? It might be different if we had continuity of culture throughout all those years set from the top down, but that’s not the case. We need to build a new identity.

I’ve sat through 1-15 and 2-14 seasons before. Why would this be any different? I know we don’t have a high first round pick to look forward to like we had in those years, and today’s situation seems super bleak—and it may be the worst we’ve experienced in franchise history—but those times also seemed pretty hopeless. I won’t stop being a fan.

Depends who is on the board and also who we were able to bring in during free agency, but giving Bryce one more year, I’d say the most glaring place to focus on is the offensive line. The WR situation is bad, but building an offensive line that can consistently pass protect and bringing in an offensive staff that can scheme up some better route combos, mix in some motion, etc to help make things easier on all the players, you can more easily manage with less talented weapons. We need better skill position players too, but they’re a less glaring issue than the line and scheme IMO.

Agreed. My take is that he showed some improvement after the first couple games, where he was by no means great but also wasn’t awful. This is not to say he didn’t miss some reads or some throws, but he did show some indications he can play at a relatively high level. Not as many as you’d like, but they were there But as the offensive line’s performance somehow deteriorated from its already very poor level, he started to feel shell shocked. And from the Colts game on, he hasn’t been flashing those positive traits much at all.